The present invention relates to electrical connectors for receiving a microcircuit containing card or "smart" card having electrical contact zones on a major face, and more particularly, to connectors of the type including a support plate for receiving that major face of the card which is opposite the major face which carries the contact zones, defining a path for insertion of the card in a specified direction and including an end-of-travel microswitch which is actuated by a front edge of the card when the latter reaches a given position.
Numerous connectors of this sort are already known, e.g., from French Patent No. 2 665 027. According to this patent, the microswitch must be closed when the card is in a position in which its contact zones are definitely in contact with resilient electrically-conductive blades carried by a box to which the plate belongs, so as to give a signal enabling exchange of information between the card and circuits connected to the connector. In practice, the microswitch must close when the card travels the last five tenths of a millimeter of its set travel, before arriving in an abutment position. Moreover, this high precision must be obtained by only simple means.
Current connectors do not perfectly fulfil this criterion; in the majority of cases they use means for control of the microswitch by the card which are influenced by the thickness of the card which may vary within relatively considerable proportions, greater than 10%.